Camera Repair Search Engine

TRANSLATOR TRADUCTOR अनुवादक TRADUCTEUR TAGASALIN ÜBERSETZER

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Repairing or replacing a digital camera LCD screen

It is necessary to actually open up the camera case to fix a broken camera LCD screen. As such, please consider that these repairs require some electrical background and knowledge, and should not be conducted by anyone unfamiliar with basic electrical components and safety precautions. Before proceeding, it is important to first read this WARNING concerning the possibility of SEVERE electrical shock from the flash capacitor should you decide to open the case of your camera.

The following link outlines repair or replacement of the fairly common problem of broken, cracked, or shattered digital camera LCD screens, including rotatable ones. These are not my own guides, but wanted to share them with all (hope this is ok Andy?):

By the way, the above YouTube video is by Zweige9. He is a very prolific videographer of LCD repair. If your camera's model is not covered here in my blog, you might want to peruse his videos on YouTube:

Here's a couple great pictorials on repairing the LCD screen of a Canon Powershot SD300 (note these procedures are also applicable to SD200 / SD300 / SD400 as the LCD screens in these three models (and ONLY these three) are interchangeable):

The cheapest source for replacement LCD screens is to buy a broken "parts/as-is" camera of the same model from ebay. The camera may have other issues, but all you're concerned about is that the LCD is not broken. Before bidding, contact the seller via ebay, and verify with the seller that the camera has a working LCD screen. CR

hi, i was just wondering if maybe someone on here would want to fix my camera screen for me if i sent them the camera? i absolutely cannot afford a new camera, but would be able to pay someone a little money to fix the one i have. or does anyone know of a really cheap repair place? i mean the camera was only $200 bucks, i'm not gonna pay someone like $150 to fix it! i considered doing it myself. then i considered the fact that i have no idea what i'm doing and i'm kind of an idiot. i decided it would be better to see if someone else could do it for me. send me an email @ thanks_bastards@yahoo.com if you can help me outThx, Tank

my digital camera has no broken lcd or what but my only problem is when i will take pictures the result is blured and distorted and the color is different, just to give you an idea my sister dropped it and since then it became like that. and onetime im using it just for fun it returned to its normal shooting mode with out any distortions at all and then it came back to its blurdness state again, how would i fix this? need help here pls.

I've decided to leave the ads up for other sources of LCD's for those of us who change LCD's out regularly. But for beginners, I recommend the best source for a replacement LCD would be another broken camera (but with a working LCD) from ebay. You should be able to get a good price, probably even cheaper than buying a brand new LCD. But more importantly, you'll be able to practice removing the LCD from the broken camera. You'll thus see if this type of repair is really up to your capabilities. If not, you won't have further damaged your good camera (with the inoperative LCD), and you can probably still sell it on ebay for a reasonable price.CR

I might recommend using ebay to purchase LCDs (new or harvested) because you can scan the feedback of seller and see if they are reliable. I don't have any specific user in mind but I have heard good things about a couple. Otherwise Canon will sell you one for like ~50 which is what I have used and recommended.

Shameless plug to my photos of my removable LCD guard I invented (as far as I know) and am very proud of:

OK, one of my readers apparently got burned by one of the LCD vendors, so no more ads for LCD purveyors in the comments section. As before, your best and by far cheapest source for a replacement LCD is a broken camera from ebay to harvest the LCD from. Most importantly it allows you to practice the removal prior to attempting the installation on your good camera.CR

anonymous,Thanks, it's been removed. And please, if anyone else has problems with links, please point them out. It's very hard to keep track of all the links in all the posts of this blog. Thanks again anon!

I have a Powershot A560 which was dropped. The LCD screen is cracked. When turned on, the lens assembly does not telescope out. The LCD glows blue in the few visible spots, the camera beeps, and then nothing. Is this just the LCD or is it something else as well? Thanks.

Hello, does anybody have experience in changing an lcd screen on a canon sd630. My problem is that when i took apart the camera i also disconnected the backlight cable ribbon and cant seem to find where this goes back in. I have spent hours looking for the slot for this cable and cant seem to find it anywhere. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks CR for your comments and they were very helpful except that my camera is an sd630 and is slightly different from the 600. Everything else is in the same place except for that cable slot. Cant seem to find info anywhere on the sd630 for some reason. Anyway, thanks again for your help. I'll keep looking.

Is it possible to replace the lcd screen on a Sony dslr a-100? The LCD screen broke and although I can still take photos, I can't change any of the settings on my camera because I can not see them. Help, please.

My ixus 400 and 500 have has a problem with the images (it takes randomly) degraded images with a thin black lines, sometimes fuzzy, a grid of white line with a tonal image sometimes with yellow patches, and anything from pink, purple and red washes sometimes with a bit of the image coming through. The video function is hit and misses as well. I’m wondering what could be causing this and if its worthwhile fixing.thanks

Jonathan,Please see this other article on the blog. Canon may fix both of those cameras for free under their CCD advisory, and may also include free shipping. This is regardless of your warranty status, or even how you came to acquire the cameras.

Hello there! I have a samsung s760, that a great cam, but it display in lcd some lines in the corn left and one in corn right, in vertical. In last day, the screen turn up totaly white, and a cant see anything. Must be trouble in LCD or logic board of video output?

CR: I ordered thru eBay a replacement LCD screen from a DIY company in SC. The LCD screen developed a burn spot the size of a pea and shortly thereafter, another spot. DIY company said they got poor LCDs from China. Cannot a person order a replacement LCD screen from an authentic Canon source?

Wow your blog is superb! My kid dropped my Kodak V1006. Now the screen is bright white and won't show the pictures. The screen has colored lines on one side and a grainy penny sized black dot in the middle. It takes and downloads pictures just fine. I just can't see them beforehand. What would Camera guy do?

Anonymous,This is from the Andy Ozment link, outlining solutions to the two most common problems with screen replacement:

"Common Problem #1. My screen just shows white or gray. (E.g. white screen, white display). What did I do wrong?A. The ribbon cable that connects the LCD to the circuit board was not inserted deeply enough. The end of the ribbon cable has a narrow portion, then a very small much wider portion with two holes at either end, then it narrows again. The very tip should be inserted into the “socket” deeply enough that the wider portion is pressed right up against the “socket.” Physically, it cannot be inserted more deeply.It may help you to use two wooden or plastic toothpicks, one in each of the small holes at the end of the cable, to push the cable into the socket.

Common Problem #2: After replacing the LCD, the LCD is black when in picture taking mode. In movie mode, it works fine as a viewfinder; it also does playback of photos taken just fine. In picture taking mode, the menu is visible, but the background is just black.A. This is not a problem with the LCD installation or the backlight if the LCD is working in movie and playback modes. You need to do a reset to resolve this problem. To reset, hold down the “menu” button for about 5 seconds (I did this in movie mode so that I could see the screen, it may work in other modes as well. I also took out my memory card to do this….just in case a reset could affect the images on the card; no idea if this precaution is necessary or not). A pop-up will ask you to confirm “reset settings to default?” Select “yes.” Viewfinder now works as expected during picture taking mode."

CR (Again, above is from Andy Ozment's guide. No pretty pictures, but very good info. Recommend reading it.)

My camera screen just suddenly stopped working. But it's only like that when i try to take pictures. When i look through my old pictures from before the camera broke, it shows up fine alonng with the menu display and whatnot. Is the problem the LCD?

Anonymous,There's nothing wrong with your camera. You just accidentally pressed the battery saving button that turns off the screen. You would then use the optical viewfinder in its place. If your camera is a Canon, look for a DISP or DISPLAY button on its back, and just press it once to turn the screen back on. If your camera is some other model, it may be labeled differently, and you may have to experiment.

Anonymous,It just occurred to me that there might be two other possibilities for your problem. These possibilities should only be considered if your camera is actually taking black images (try downloading to your computer to confirm). If it is taking black images, you're either experiencing a stuck shutter (see the May 30, 2009 article on this blog), or CCD failure (see the November 13, 2007 article on this blog).

Anonymous,It just occurred to me that there might be two other possibilities for your problem. These possibilities should only be considered if your camera is actually taking black images (try downloading to your computer to confirm). If it is taking black images, you're either experiencing a stuck shutter (see the May 30, 2009 article on this blog), or CCD failure (see the November 13, 2007 article on this blog).

I have a Lumix panasonic DMC TZ3 camera and the screen has a bunch on thin black lines against a whitish/grey background making it difficult to take pictures. The lens is intact and not broken. When the pictures are uploaded, the quality is just fine. It's just the screen with the lines problem. Please help

I have a Panasonic TZ 5 and just replaced the display. Now when I turn it on the display works but there is now light coming from it... Any idea what this can be? did I broke the new display when installing it?

Hi, I just replaced the lcd screen of my cannon powershot s3is but it doesn't work. I can't even work the camera without the lcd screen as I did before !!there is just a bip noise everytime I press any button . any help?

Anonymous,I can't help you on specifics, as I've never opened an S3, but the symptoms that you're stating are usually caused by a flex cable that has not yet been fully seated in its connector. I would recommend "carefully" reseating every cable that you had connected or disconnected to make sure that they're all the way in.Good luck,CR

I have purchased a replacement LCD for my Samsung PL210 but I don't know how to open the ribbon cable connector on the camera board to reinsert the new cable. I don't see how I can "lift" or "slide" a flap. In fact, I can't see any flap or lid at all. There are two metalic parts at each end of the black connector but "pushing" on them doesn't do anything. Is there any way to open the connector, or do I need to use brute force to reinsert the cable?

Thanx, you're a money saver. My LCD screen when dark on me and your comment posted on August 9th did the trick. Some guy online wanted to charge $16 dollars just to answer my question. Many, many thanx.

HI,I have a samsung SL202, when I try to turn it on the lens comes out but immediately goes back in, I know its not the battery or the charger because I can go into the camera menu and I can see the pictures and videos taken, but I can not take pictures it shuts off right away, please help!

Hello! Tell me please, where can I get the best screen for my camera. All shops that I found suggest only Chinese variants, I looked here hardware.ch, they propose european hardware, but I can;t fins appropriate variant!

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Why this Blog?

PLEASE READ THIS !Oh no! You've dropped your digital camera. And it's out of warranty. And repair costs more than the camera is worth. What to do short of tossing the camera (or selling on ebay)? Well, believe it or not the average person has a good chance of diy fixing that camera themselves. All they'll need for most cases is some patience, and a little background knowledge. The intent of the posts on this blog are to help provide that knowledge.

But now for the WARNINGS! Many of the repairs posted here should only be considered as a last resort for a broken camera that would otherwise be considered for disposal. Also please consider those repairs that require removing the camera case to also require some electrical background and knowledge, and should not be attempted by anyone unfamiliar with basic electrical components and safety precautions.

Make sure you read this post and are aware of the potential DANGER OF SEVERE ELECTRICAL SHOCK should you decide to proceed with a "do it yourself" repair that involves removing the camera case.

WHAT YOU READ HERE IS NOT PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. Most of the posts and comments in this blog come from amateur repair hobbyists (INCLUDING MYSELF). Take the advice with a grain of salt. YOU MAY ACTUALLY MAKE MATTERS WORSE by following what you read here. Many of these repairs will almost certainly VOID YOUR CAMERA'S WARRANTY.

It's ultimately YOUR RESPONSIBILITY should YOU DECIDE to try some of the repairs posted here.

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